Yes, It Probably Is Abused

Something that popped up some time after I graduated school was the rise of unpaid internships, and it appears that authorities are beginning to look at them for labor and wage law violations:

With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

I would be inclined to agree.

My father, my mother, and my older brother all went to the (lamentably now closed, at least until 2012) Antioch College, and I considered going there myself, and they had a co-op job program, where work credits were required to graduate, and this was for paid positions, so the idea of huge numbers of unpaid students doing scut work seems to me to be more of an opportunity to get free labor than of any legitimate educational need.

Additionally, I think that the growth of unpaid internships may hide a darker agenda, specifically that with the growth of this practice, and the necessity of this sort of experience to enter some fields, it creates an unlevel playing field for people in many fields:

While many colleges are accepting more moderate- and low-income students to increase economic mobility, many students and administrators complain that the growth in unpaid internships undercuts that effort by favoring well-to-do and well-connected students, speeding their climb up the career ladder.

Many less affluent students say they cannot afford to spend their summers at unpaid internships, and in any case, they often do not have an uncle or family golf buddy who can connect them to a prestigious internship.

Additionally, the laws regarding discrimination and sexual harassment appear not to apply to interns, since they are not employees, so the opportunities for abuse are rife.